Is there a way to repair a damaged PCI express slot?

I did this when pulling the memory DIMMs out their sockets (VERY tight fit). The DIMM retaining clips on the one side opened out against my NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT graphics card (installed in that PCI slot) ... and anyway you can guess the rest. I was trying to be careful ... honest! Straight after that, the graphics card would then go totally dead when operating in any mode other than plain old VGA mode. When I moved it to the second PCI Express X 16 slot all was well again.

I spent many hours diagnosing things and have come to the conclusion that one of the contacts between the PCI expressX16 slot and the motherboard must have gotten damaged (... or something similar). This is a great pity as I was hoping to buy another GeForce 7800GT and SLI both of them together.

So basically, I want to find out if there is a way (without involving expensive specialist equipment) to find out exactly which pins/contacts have been damaged and if using a fine tipped soldering iron and a multi-meter can be used to do the repair. I can't see any damage and it is all dust free.

Or is this all wishful thinking, and should I rather just consider it a lost cause??

I did this when pulling the memory DIMMs out their sockets (VERY tight fit). The DIMM retaining clips on the one side opened out against my NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT graphics card (installed in that PCI slot) ... and anyway you can guess the rest. I was trying to be careful ... honest! Straight after that, the graphics card would then go totally dead when operating in any mode other than plain old VGA mode. When I moved it to the second PCI Express X 16 slot all was well again.

I spent many hours diagnosing things and have come to the conclusion that one of the contacts between the PCI expressX16 slot and the motherboard must have gotten damaged (... or something similar). This is a great pity as I was hoping to buy another GeForce 7800GT and SLI both of them together.

So basically, I want to find out if there is a way (without involving expensive specialist equipment) to find out exactly which pins/contacts have been damaged and if using a fine tipped soldering iron and a multi-meter can be used to do the repair. I can't see any damage and it is all dust free.

Or is this all wishful thinking, and should I rather just consider it a lost cause??

Would appreciate any feedback.

Thanks in advance

Glen

Bummer dude. It happens.

I don't know much about repairing circuits and sockets manually, but I do know a good deal about graphics cards.

I tell you, don't even bother SLI'ing 7800GT's! Those are very outdated and won't scale well.With 8800GT/9800GT's that can easily be found for under $120, there's no point to SLI'ing 7800GT's. Take a look at the difference between 7800GT SLI and a single 8800GT.

So what I'm trying to say is don't SLI the 7800GT, grab a single 9600GSO/8800GS, 8800GT, or better.